The very first thing I wrote in my journal during my summer trip was this: "Give me what is better, Lord. Give me only what is You and of You. I'm scrubbing my slate clean. Do what You will. My slate is Your canvas, and I can't wait to see what You paint!"
When I prayed that, God must've smiled, knowing what He had in store for me. Only two weeks into The Experience, I strongly sensed God telling me, Give Me a blank slate and say YES to whatever I say.
When I shared with one of the speakers what God had asked of me, he said, "Okay, so a blank slate. Good. What is God asking you to do next?" I replied that all I knew was I was supposed to keep the slate blank and wait . . . and hopefully He would speak.
The speaker cracked a smile. "Do you struggle with control?"
My jaw dropped. Suddenly I knew. Control and trust, the two issues I have wrestled with consistently for 21 years. God was forcing me into a situation where I had no control and would be forced to throw myself on Him in trusting dependence. And I didn't like it one bit.
But why worry? I thought. If God is asking me to surrender my dreams, surely He will give them back. I was confident (maybe even a little arrogant) about how I wanted to spend my life for the Kingdom. I had it all planned out. It would be powerful and impactful and very, very visible.
Two days later, we were on a flight to Jarabacoa, Dominican Republic, to spend a week ministering at a school and in two rural villages. I couldn't wait to show God what I would do! I couldn't wait for the opportunity to speak and do up-front, out-loud ministry.
But even in my arrogance, I was also listening. As I listened, I distinctly felt the Holy Spirit saying, "Be quiet, Jordan." Each day, the same message: be quiet. Be quiet, be quiet, be quiet. Day after day my teammates operated in their giftings and God brought about salvations and hope left and right! Yet He prompted me to stay in the background, to wash dishes, to converse with locals in simple Spanish, and to help keep the team unified by corporate prayer. Be quiet. Stay in the background.
Eventually, when I found some time alone, I asked the Lord for the hundredth time why He was asking me to take on such a quiet role. He answered gently in my heart, saying, How does it make you feel, Jordan?
"God, I feel frustrated. I feel stripped of effectiveness. I feel like You've taken away my identity."
Letting God lead me in that time of quietness, I started asking myself some hard questions. It didn't take long for my arrogance to crumble in a misery of tears. I realized that I had found my identity not in Him, but in what I did for Him. I had so identified myself with my gifts that I no longer separated the two. In the Dominican Republic, God showed me the beauty of quietness, the beauty of serving and ministering in ways that are invisible to all eyes but His.
We spent the next week in Haiti, where God brought me to the end of myself. He allowed me to be broken so that when He used me, He would be using a humble, trustingly dependent Jordan, not a Jordan confident in her own abilities. At the same time, God began putting me in situations and using me in different ways where I excelled, but wasn't so thrilled about. My leaders began looking at me differently, saying things like, "Wow, Jordan, you really have a gift in this area." I shrugged it off, not wanting to go there in my mind. I still preferred my idea of up-front ministry, even after seeing the beauty of background ministry in the Dominican Republic.
On our last day in Haiti, one of my teammates suddenly spoke it out loud. He told me what I would be doing with my life. I wanted to walk away! What he described was not how I wanted to spend my life for the Kingdom. I had my own ideas of how I wanted to serve God, thank you very much.
But my teammate countered my argument with, "Jordan, would you do it if God asked you to?"
I grit my teeth. "Well . . . yes. If God asked me to, I would."
My teammate smiled at me. "Will you pray about it?"
I said I would, but I walked away trying my hardest to forget. My mind screamed God, no, no, no!
But the seed had been planted, and I could not get it out of my mind. I did pray -- very hard. I prayed that my teammate was wrong. I prayed that this wasn't what God wanted to write on my blank slate.
I wrestled with it in the airport on our way back to the US. One of my leaders saw me and asked what was going on. I explained my struggle with what my teammate had said. "Would God really ask me to make my life's work something I am not passionate about?"
By the time we were reunited with our other teammates in Miami, I knew the answer.
Bottom line: my purpose in life is to glorify God, whatever that looks like. And since He is God, He gets to decide what He wants that to look like. My job is to say YES to whatever God says, obeying Him no matter the cost.
Having passion and excitement for what He asks me to do are not prerequisites for obeying Him. I must obey regardless of how I feel about it, and if He chooses to do so in His perfect, good will, He can bring passion and excitement to my act of obedience.
I wrestled with this for several weeks as the summer program continued. At this point I didn't know how to really cup my hands (that would be something I'd learn in September), but as I slowly began unclenching my hands and lifting tearful, vulnerable eyes to my loving Lord, I chose to say yes. Yes to whatever He wanted. Yes, regardless of how I felt about it. Yes, because I exist for Him, not the other way around.
What came next was quiet, peaceful confirmation that I had finally stepped into His will for me. I stood up and walked forward during a call to an international life. There was no clarity beyond that -- just that He was pleased, and that was enough for me. Through the final weeks of the program, God opened my eyes to see that His plan for me is wondrously, gloriously alive! Filled with purpose and meaning, even though it is dramatically different than what I had planned for myself. Different, but oh, so much better. I felt so loved by God and soon was able to rejoice in doing whatever He wanted. It was so sweet to please Him, so sweet to surrender and let Him write the story.
But what surprised me most of all was my heart. Slowly, it had begun to change, and I didn't realize it until the day I caught myself thinking about "my new dream" -- and I stopped short, stunned.
My new dream?
On graduation day, I was unexpectedly given the opportunity to FaceTime with the teammate who had spoken to me in Haiti and turned my world upside down. I found myself saying to him, "I chose to say YES, and when I chose to obey, God changed my heart toward this. Now, this is all I want to do."
I fully believe that when we say YES to God, obeying regardless of how we feel about it, He can change our hearts. He can open our eyes to a plan much larger and more alive than we could ever imagine. He is GOOD, and His plan is absolutely flawless.
“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland." -Isaiah 43:18-19
Choose YES. I promise you, you will not regret it.
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